Endorsed by Courts and the Government, Uranium Mining Continues to Create Health Hazards in Jadugoda as the UCIL Expands Its Operations

Several non-government independent researchers and scientists who visited Jaduguda have found that the local populations faced a higher risk of health hazards due to the nuclear radiation. Dhanram Gop, a 13-year-old resident of Jadugoda when the photo was taken, in 2013, was mentally weak and had a congenital deformity since birth.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

The Jadugoda mill complex of the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, where uranium is obtained from the ore.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

During the milling process, a huge amount of nuclear waste in liquid form, or slurry, is left behind, which is expelled into the tailings ponds through long pipelines that pass through the villages. UCIL has erected signboards to warn people about the pond, which can be seen in the background.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

The quantity of uranium ore processed at the Jadugoda mill also raises important concerns regarding the storage of the nuclear discharge. Shakeel Ur Rahman, an independent researcher who conducted a health survey in the area in 2007, said, ''It was highly likely that the toxic slurry could enter into the food chain by mixing up with the groundwater.''Photographs by Chinky Shukla

Parvati, who was then a 14-year-old resident of Bango village near Jadugoda, had a congenital deformity of an enlarged chest. Her father had worked as a labourer in the construction of the tailing pond. He blamed himself for his daughter's condition.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

Mohan, who was 19 years old when the photo was taken, suffered from a congenital deformity and had six toe-fingers. His father worked as a miner in the uranium mines at Jadugoda and died of lung cancer.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

Rakesh Gop, an 11-year-old resident of Jadugoda in 2013, suffered from mental retardation and had weak limbs.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

Despite the presence of several cases of primary sterility, cancer, and congenital deformities in Jadugoda, the UCIL has consistently dismissed the concerns about the health hazard posed by the mining and milling of uranium.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

A 2002 survey conducted by Hiroaki Koide, a researcher with Kyoto University, found a high level of uranium contamination at the Rakha mines railway station, due to the transportation of semi-processed uranium from the station.Photographs by Chinky Shukla

This reported story is accompanied by photos taken by the photojournalist Chinky Shukla in 2013 for her award-winning project on uranium mining in Jadugoda.

“I had never seen something like that—there was red and black dust all around in the air,” Kartik Sardar, a 20-year-old resident of Tilaitand village in Jharkhand’s East Singhbhum district, told me. He was describing a dust storm had covered the neighbourhood and its houses one week before my visit to the area, on 20 May. The storm carried particles from a nearby reservoir-like structure, called a tailings pond, containing material that is discharged after the milling of uranium ore. Surendra Das, a shopkeeper in the area, said the intensity of the storm had forced him to keep his shop closed for two hours for three consecutive days during the storm. “You wouldn’t have been visible to me if you stood next to me here,” Sardar added. “It was so suffocating.”

The Tilaitand village, where the tailings pond is situated, is adjacent to the Hata-Musabani road, around 32 kilometres south-east of Jamshedpur city, and within two kilometres from a uranium mine in the Jadugoda town. The Jadugoda town is spread over four villages—Ichra, Bhatin, Tilaitand and Mechua—and the area contains one of seven uranium mines in Jharkhand, six of which are in East Singhbhum district, and one in Saraikela Kharsawan district. Though the mining activities at the Jadugoda mine are presently suspended, uranium ore from several mines is taken to the mill, or processing plant, in the area. There are two mills in the East Singhbhum—at Jadugoda and at Turamdih, a village in the district.

At the plants, after a process of crushing, wet grinding and leaching—a process through which the ore is converted into soluble salts—a concentrated uranium compound called uranium peroxide, or yellowcake, is obtained from the ore. The yellowcake is then stashed in drums and again transported to the Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) in Hyderabad for enrichment. During the milling process, a huge amount of nuclear waste is left behind in liquid form—slurry—which is then expelled into the tailings ponds through long pipelines that pass through the villages. At the ponds, the heavy material that forms a part of the nuclear discharge takes a form of granular sand—this sand is what is termed tailings, and which often gets carried to the nearby villages during storms.

There are three tailings ponds in Jadugoda. The structures are surrounded on three sides by mining hills, and the fourth side contains an embankment, into which the nuclear waste is released through pipelines. The ponds are constructed and managed by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL)—a public-sector undertaking that functions under the Department of Atomic Energy, which in turn works directly under the prime minister’s office.